Quote from: PseudoephedrineGames without any possibility of growing, changing or developing your character are kind of silly.

I think the point is that character growth/change/development doesn't have to mean steadily increasing powers and abilities. It can also occur through new and improved relationships and knowledge, things which don't get quantified on the character sheet in many game systems.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineIt seems like the only reason you could get away with it would be to emulate a particular genre where the characters are already far more competent than the typical person (pulp or superheroes, as others have pointed out). I am generally uninterested in pulp or superheroes - I'd rather play a curious scholar than Spiderman or whatever.

I agree that it's easier to play a no/slow growth style with characters who are already powerful, but I don't think it has to be tied to genre; for example, I wouldn't expect a party of Middle Earth elves to get appreciably more powerful over the course of a high-level fantasy campaign, and I'd think it strange for a well-trained Federation starship crew to suddenly gain steep increases in their abilities (barring some story-driven newly discovered technology, of course).

[BTW, I've played a lot of games over the years with a lot of different ways of handling experience and character/power advancement. In AD&D and Rolemaster, anticipating and achieving the next level and the next set of powers was a big motivator and a lot of fun. In Traveller, increasing player skills took a back seat to paying off the ship and getting a better one. In Gamma World, throwing yourself on a radioactive hot spot of exactly the right level was a quick route to cool new powers. In Runequest, it was all about the skill/POW gain rolls because Rune status in your chosen cult was the way to go. In Amber Diceless, advancement in terms of stats was almost meaningless.]

25+ years ago, when I was playing in college almost daily, most of our games involved getting typical weak starting characters and building them up to super stud-hood. Nowadays, when my fellow players (mostly middle-aged family men) can only get together to play about once a month, the noob-to-l33t path holds less interest and we'd rather start with pretty cool characters from the get go. Consequently, our characters, while not static or stagnant, change little in terms of raw power even over the course of a multi-year game, although I think they still grow a great deal as characters of the story.

Quote from: SeanAre there any games that dispense with character advancement (no levelling up or increased skills) and are still geared around long-term play rather than one-shot beer and pretzels games?

Games? I don't recall any that meet that requirement, but that doesn't mean there isn't.


Campaigns? Certainly, I typically run Superhero games in this fashion. Any genre that's attempting to match series TV and some other media would likely be suited for it as well.

Traveller. There it is.

Quote from: James McMurrayMSH Basic has character advancement in the campaign book. You spend karma to increase traits and buy new powers or skills.

Seems I'm wrong again.  It may only be 4 paragraphs in the back of the campaign book, but it's there.

...was I wrong about battletech too?

What about BESM (1ed). In some ways character advancement is optional.

Regards,
David R